County judge-executive Yates steps down

Clark County Judge-Executive Les Yates has resigned his posi­tion. In a let­ter dat­ed March 3, Yates said he was step­ping down because he is a can­di­date for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and believes the coun­ty deserves some­one who can serve full-time.

“I can­not in good con­science col­lect the salary of County Judge/Executive know­ing shared pri­or­i­ties of run­ning for the State House will occu­py a sig­nif­i­cant amount of my time. I believe that a lead­er­ship tran­si­tion at this time will best serve the cit­i­zens of Clark County and the employ­ees of Clark County gov­ern­ment,” he wrote.

A copy of the let­ter was left on Yates’ desk at the cour­t­house, and anoth­er copy was giv­en to County Clerk Michelle Turner on Tuesday.

Yates told WinCity Voices that he was in the Governor’s Office around 9:30 Tuesday morn­ing and gave the let­ter to Rocky Adkins, a senior advis­er to Gov. Andy Beshear, who took it upstairs to the gov­er­nor. He did not say that he spoke with the gov­er­nor per­son­al­ly. According to the let­ter, the res­ig­na­tion was effec­tive at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Clark County Fiscal Court had an emer­gency spe­cial called meet­ing to deal with the sit­u­a­tion. Magistrate Daniel Konstantopoulos, who was appoint­ed to chair the meet­ing, said mem­bers of the court had not been prop­er­ly informed.

“My ques­tion is, do we know that he has tech­ni­cal­ly resigned?” Konstantopoulos asked. “Has it been deliv­ered to the prop­er authorities?”

Turner said she had been giv­en a copy of the let­ter, which was time-stamped at 4:21 p.m. Tuesday.

County Attorney William Elkins said he did not know whether Yates had pre­sent­ed his res­ig­na­tion to the gov­er­nor or if it had been accept­ed. It would have to be record­ed in the Secretary of State’s exec­u­tive jour­nal, he said. The jour­nal is a record of the gov­er­nor’s exec­u­tive orders.

According to state law KRS 63.210, when a vacan­cy for the office occurs, the coun­ty clerk must imme­di­ate­ly noti­fy the gov­er­nor. The Fiscal Court must then imme­di­ate­ly elect one of its mem­bers to serve as a tem­po­rary coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive until the gov­er­nor fills the vacan­cy. That appoint­ment would remain until anoth­er judge-exec­u­tive is elect­ed and takes office in January.

However, because the mem­bers were uncer­tain of the vacan­cy, the Fiscal Court took no action on Wednesday to appoint a tem­po­rary replacement.

“I think it would be appro­pri­ate if we take the nec­es­sary pro­to­col for lock­ing down the office and secur­ing the cour­t­house and autho­rize the coun­ty attor­ney to reach out to the Governor’s Office and get an offi­cial con­fir­ma­tion … that he met all the require­ments and that (the gov­er­nor) accept­ed the res­ig­na­tion. That’s my rec­om­men­da­tion,” Konstantopoulos said.

The oth­er mag­is­trates agreed, and anoth­er emer­gency spe­cial meet­ing was sched­uled for 1 p.m. Thursday.

“The only infor­ma­tion that we received was that his desk was emp­ty and there was a let­ter on his desk that said he intend­ed to resign, and he pro­vid­ed a copy to the clerk,” Konstantopoulos told reporters after the meet­ing. Reporters were giv­en a copy of the letter.

Konstantopoulos said it’s pos­si­ble the gov­er­nor could fill the vacan­cy before the mag­is­trates could act on Thursday.

“He may have got­ten the noti­fi­ca­tion, and we don’t know about it. By tonight, by the stroke of a pen, we could have a new judge tomor­row,” he said. “I think it’ll hap­pen pret­ty quickly.” 

Scottie Ellis, the governor’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor, informed WinCity Voices on Wednesday that the office had received the let­ter of res­ig­na­tion and that the news orga­ni­za­tion would be informed about the next steps.

In a phone inter­view just pri­or to Wednesday’s Fiscal Court meet­ing, Yates said the gov­er­nor, by law, has 30 days to make the appointment.

Yates said one rea­son he ran for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive was that he want­ed to “spend the tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey wise­ly,” and he didn’t think he could devote the time nec­es­sary to the office if he was run­ning for anoth­er office. He men­tioned that he’s aver­aged only two or three days off a year in the three years he’s been in the office.

“It just weighed heav­i­ly on me,” he said. “I couldn’t be hyp­o­crit­i­cal and waste the tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars. It was a tough deci­sion for me.” 

Yates said he had “heard a rumor” that the mag­is­trates were going to ask Magistrate Stephen Craycraft, who is serv­ing his first term, to fill the vacancy.

“It has been men­tioned,” Craycraft said Wednesday, adding that he would be “will­ing to do it” if asked.

Yates said he thought Konstantopoulos would be the bet­ter choice.

“Daniel K is the most knowl­edge­able per­son on the court as far as the finances of the coun­ty goes, so I don’t under­stand why they’re not putting him there,” he said.

Konstantopoulos, who has been in office since 2015, filled that role once before, in 2021, when County Judge-Executive Chris Pace died while in office. Konstantopoulos served for sev­er­al days until Beshear appoint­ed for­mer County Judge-Executive Henry Branham to fill the vacan­cy through the end of the term. Yates was elect­ed in 2022 and took office in 2023.

Konstantopoulos is run­ning against Yates for the 73^rd District House seat that Yates held for one term before los­ing to Ryan Dotson in the Republican pri­ma­ry in 2020.

Yates’s rela­tion­ship with the mag­is­trates has some­times been rocky dur­ing his one term in office.

“I think there was maybe a lot of polit­i­cal moti­va­tion or what­ev­er behind them not want­i­ng to maybe help me as much as they could have,” he said. “Actually, I can hon­est­ly say that they haven’t made my job easy.”

Craycraft said the dif­fi­cul­ty between the judge-exec­u­tive and mag­is­trates began when Yates filed two law­suits against them, alleg­ing that they were try­ing to usurp his author­i­ty on fill­ing com­mit­tee and board posi­tions. The mag­is­trates’ actions were upheld in court, Craycraft said.

“Up until that point, I was friends with him,” he remarked.

After that, he said, he and the oth­er mag­is­trates were wary about what Yates might do next.

Craycraft is one of five can­di­dates for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive in this year’s elections.

Yates said the county’s finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties will be the biggest issue fac­ing his replacement.

Spending has been cut “to the bone,” he remarked. “There’s only one solu­tion to that. They’re going to have to raise rev­enue. I don’t know where you would cut it. When I left there, every depart­ment basi­cal­ly had to get my per­mis­sion to approve any purchase.” 

“I don’t agree with that,” Craycraft said.

He said that with an increase in prop­er­ty tax assess­ments and “prop­er man­age­ment,” the Fiscal Court could avoid rais­ing tax rates.

“There has been a lack of account­abil­i­ty,” Craycraft added.

However, he did agree that the county’s fis­cal sit­u­a­tion is dif­fi­cult. Craycraft said there is cur­rent­ly a $300,000 EMS bill, and if the coun­ty paid the city now, it might not be able to make payroll.